A Collection of Short Stories from the Bystander & Morning Post - Including 'A Shot in the Dark', 'The Holy War', 'The Pond', and Many More

By Hector Hugh Munro

These works by H. H. Munro were originally published in the early 20th century and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'A Collection of Short Stories from the Bystander & Morning Post' is a collection of short stories, including 'A Shot in the Dark', 'The Holy War', 'The Pond', and many more. Hector Hugh Munro was born in Akyab, Burma in 1870. He was raised by aunts in North Devon, England, before returning to Burma in his early twenties to join the Colonial Burmese Military Police. Later, Munro returned once more to England, where he embarked on his career as a journalist, becoming well-known for his satirical 'Alice in Westminster' political sketches, which appeared in the Westminster Gazette. Arguably better-remembered by his pen name, 'Saki', Munro is now considered a master of the short story, with tales such as 'The Open Window' regarded as examples of the form at its finest.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Press
• Release date: Apr 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781473373150

Book preview

A Collection of Short Stories from the Bystander & Morning Post

Including ‘A Shot in the Dark’, ‘The Holy War’, ‘The Pond’, and Many More

by

Hector Hugh Munro

(Saki)

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

Hector Hugh Munro

Clovis On The Alleged Romance Of Business

THE POND

A SHOT IN THE DARK

A SACRIFICE TO NECESSITY

A HOUSEING PROBLEM

THE HOLY WAR

THE ALMANAC — a Clovis story

The East Wing

Hector Hugh Munro

Hector Hugh Munro was born in Akyab, Burma in 1870. He was raised by aunts in North Devon, England, before returning to Burma in his early twenties to join the Colonial Burmese Military Police. Later, Munro returned once more to England, where he embarked on his career as a journalist, becoming well-known for his satirical ‘Alice in Westminster’ political sketches, which appeared in the Westminster Gazette. Munro’s first longer work, a historical treatise entitled The Rise of the Russian Empire appeared in 1900. His first collection of short stories, Not-so-Stories, was published two years later. After a stint as a foreign correspondent in the Balkans and Russia, Munro published The Chronicles of Clovis (1911), another collection of short stories which featured his most famous hero, Clovis. During World War I, he reached the rank of Lance Sergeant, and penned a number of short stories from the trenches. However, he was killed by a German sniper in November of 1916, aged 45. Arguably better-remembered by his pen name, ‘Saki’, Munro is now considered a master of the short story, with tales such as ‘The Open Window’ regarded as examples of the form at its finest.

Clovis On The Alleged Romance Of Business

It is the fashion nowadays, said Clovis, "to talk about the romance of Business. There isn’t such a thing. The romance has all been the other way, with the idle apprentice, the truant, the run-away, the individual who couldn’t be bothered with figures and book-keeping and left business to look after itself. I admit that a grocer’s shop is one of the most romantic and thrilling things I have ever happened upon, but the romance and thrill are centred in the groceries, not the grocer. The citron and spices and nuts and dates, the barrelled anchovies and Dutch cheeses, the jars of caviar and chest of tea, they carry the mind away to Levantine coast towns and tropic shores, to the Old World wharfs and quays of the Low Countries, to dusty Astrachan and far Cathay; if the grocer’s apprentice has any romance in him it is not a business education he gets behind the grocer’s counter, it is a standing invitation to dream and to wander, and to remain poor. As a child such places as South America and Asia Minor were brought painstakingly under my notice, the names of their principal rivers and the heights of their chief mountain peaks were committed to my memory. and I was earnestly enjoined to consider them as parts of the world that I lived in; it was only when I visited a large well-stocked grocer’s shop that I realized that they certainly existed. Such galleries of romance and fascination are not bequeathed to us by the business man; he is only the dull custodian, who talks glibly of Spanish olives and Rangoon rice, a Spain that he has never known or wished to know, a Rangoon that he has never imagined or could imagine. It was the unledgered wanderer, the careless-hearted seafarer, the aimless outcast, who opened up new trade routes, tapped new markets, brought home samples or cargoes of new edibles and unknown condiments. It was they who brought the glamour and romance to the threshold of business life, where it was promptly reduced to pounds, shillings and pence; invoiced, double-entried,